You, Me, Us
Whenever two people come together, we can think of the relationship, itself, as a third independent entity. Some counsellors take this approach with clients suffering with relationship issues. I believe it is a beneficial concept, particularly regarding marriage, though it is useful in other kinds of relationships as well.
Let’s bring two people together into the same environment. Each comes with his/her own life. Until they meet, they are entirely independent. We could represent it like this:
As they meet, some intersection will occur even if it is nothing deeper than a culturally acceptable greeting. We’ll assume they share some interest because they are in the same place at the same time. Since I’m representing the individuals with circles, we’ll let the area of overlap represent the relationship. Please observe that it's important to maintain the integrity of the two individuals. The two become one in the sharing of ever more of their individual lives together. I like to use the word "subsume" in warning about a potential problem here. We need to be careful that the dominant character (and there always is one) does not subsume the other. In other words, don't let one party simply incorporate the other into his or her life like a newly acquired tool or toy.
As they spend more time together, if they discover that they share other aspects of life like values and perhaps fears, the increasing overlap strengthens the relationship. Trust grows and with it a willingness to bring other aspects into the area of overlap. For example each may adjust his or her individual ambitions for the sake of sharing the other’s ambitions. New abilities may be acquired to allow them to share activities. Maybe he was never interested in winter sports, but he learns to ski in order to be able to spend more time with her. Maybe she had set aside music after her experience in early high school, but she digs out her flute and starts taking private lessons so they can make music together.
In a deep relationship, almost everything gets pulled into the area of overlap, except for personality qualities. Healthy relationships celebrate and capitalize on the strengths of the individuals personalities. Those in which one party demands that the other change in fundamental ways, giving up areas of autonomy, fall into the unhealthy category. While each person is still a separate person, the shared aspects of their lives grow to take on more significance to them as well as consuming more of their discretionary time and other resources. In the building stage of an intimate relationship, considerable effort is invested in drawing in as much as possible of the individuals' separate selves into the shared self, the relationship. At this point we can easily recognize that this has taken on a life of its own. Now we have you, me and us.
There is never likely to be a perfect overlap in any specific aspect of personhood. Contemporary life is so multi-faceted, that there are bound to be aspects where differences arise. The response of those involved in the relationship to these things can either strengthen the bond or contribute to its dissolution. Just as in the courtship phase, both parties actively look for things they share, once deterioration sets in, either or both may start paying more attention to the differences.
In my observation of relationships, the differences themselves are not the biggest problem, it is the response of the parties involved to the differences that determines what will happen to the relationship. It is one thing to see these differences as “flaws,” “weaknesses,” “eccentricities,” or in some similar way. We may even be able to embrace these things as personal quirks which endear the other to us. The person who always laughs too loudly, is always late, frequently spills things at the table, gets lost often, or is generally forgetful may be as cherished by his or her partner as the one who is always discrete, punctual, adept, with a great sense of direction and a photographic memory.
Where things begin to break down seriously is at the point where the “flaw” is assigned a negative moral value. Once we see our partner as evil instead of eccentric, wicked rather than weak, immoral instead of inept, disobedient instead of disorganized, ungodly rather than unlike us, or something similar, we move into an area where retreat requires great purposeful effort.
When this happens, remember that even though your efforts may be focussed on "fixing" the other party, most of those efforts will end up destroying the relationship. Your heart may be entirely in the right place. You genuinely care about the other and want what is best for him or her, but unless he or she is unusually humble and receptive, the net effect on the relationship is generally negative.
What happens in such a case is that the process begins to reverse. Instead of finding things which bring you together, you find more and more points of difference. The area of overlap gets ever smaller. This can happen faster than you might imagine since the size of the overlap is largely a matter of perception in the first place. All it takes is a shift in perception to move things out of the area of overlap and back into the individual domain.
For example, when you see something like procrastination as a moral flaw, you push "character" from the overlap to the personal area. Once that happens, it's hard to share ambitions. (After all, how can you have a common goal with someone so morally flawed?) Shared ambitions usually hinge on shared interest, so that goes next. Since the other seems to have little interest in responding to your effort to improve him or her, you interpret that as different values. Soon your common fear of external enemies morphs into a mutual fear of each other. You fear that the other will not respond positively to your help, he or she fears that you will keep challenging and attacking. On and on it goes until you find yourselves as separate as (perhaps more separate than) you were the day you met.
So what are you going to do about it. If you have not fallen into this pattern of behaviour yet, (besides thanking God for this) keep in mind that how you treat the other will affect the quality of the relationship. You've worked hard to bring more and more aspects of life into the area of overlap, don't reverse the process and start throwing stuff out.
If you recognize that you are already headed down the road of reducing the area of overlap, (besides asking God for help) interrupt the process. You can short circuit it. One of handiest tools in the relationship repair shop is humility. We need to be able to get off our own high horse, step away from all of our self-justified self-righteousness, acknowledge our own contribution to the problem and gently, slowly, patiently, refocus on all of the shared aspects of life which drew us together in the first place.
It's possible that when you really value someone else, you embark on an improvement project. Be aware that your best intentions for the other may deal a mortal wound to the relationship.
Ron Hughes
© November 2008
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Reply #1 on : Wed January 21, 2009, 09:57:55